My Writing Journey

Misha Gerrick

Thanks for having me over, Juneta!

I had a bit of an unconventional start to my writing journey. My maternal grandmother is a published writer in Afrikaans, my mother tongue, and she had over twenty children’s stories written by the time I was born, not counting the ones on radio and TV. So to me, stories have always been part of my life.

If I told my gran about a story idea I wanted her to write, she’d tell me to write it myself, and so began my flirtation with writing at the tender age of eight.

Around the age of thirteen, I really became serious about writing novels, when I had the first idea that I knew would have to become a novel. It didn’t pan out, but I didn’t stop writing either. It took me seven failed drafts to finish a story for the first time and, as luck would have it, that finished draft became the first and second books I sold to a publisher.

You’d think that was a start to an incredibly charmed life… You’d be wrong. The Vanished Knight wasn’t even published for six months before I started fighting to get my rights back. Long story as to why, but it wasn’t pretty and it left me so jaded with the industry that I decided to stick with self-publishing, at least until The War of Six Crowns is done. (Or, you know, I become world-famous and big publishers are beating down my door for the book rights. Whichever comes first.)

Right now, I’m chipping away at Book 3 in The War of Six Crowns. It’s a monster book, so it’s hard not to feel overwhelmed by the workload, but I’m taking it a word at a time. Eventually, it’ll be done. After that, I have three more sequels in this series and two in another, and a whole host of other stories waiting for me.

Where are you on your writing journey?

About Misha Gerrick

Misha was born and raised in South Africa, and currently lives near Cape Town with a small menagerie of dogs, cats, pigs, horses, and a parrot. When she isn’t writing, she’s usually editing or doing something artistic.

The entity living inside Callan’s soul orphaned her at age eleven. By the time she’s sixteen, it’s ensured her being shunted from one foster family to another.

Her thirteenth foster assignment should be routine. Except…it’s not. A psycho in medieval armor kidnaps her and she ends up in a magical world. There, she accidentally discovers a secret her parents had kept until the day they died.

Both actually came from this magical world, but left before Callan was born. To cover their tracks, they’d lied about everything. Even who they really were.

Driven to find out where she comes from, Callan’s trapped in a race for life and death. Walking away isn’t an option, but if she stays too long, the entity will find its next victim.

In this world where secrets are sacrosanct and grudges are remembered, finding the truth will be near impossible. Especially when Callan has her own homicidal little secret to deal with.

After discovering her parents had kept a whole world secret, Callan races to discover her past. Not easy to do with an increasingly agitated entity inhabiting her soul.

Going to her long-lost elvish roots should answer all her questions. Instead, she ends up in the middle of a nightmare.

The elves are on the verge of an apocalyptic war. Their enemy, King Aurek of Icaimerith, will only be appeased if Callan marries his heir. It’s either her life getting messed up, or an entire country’s lives lost. Simple enough, right?

Wrong.

Because when the entity wants the elves blotted out of existence, saving them gets taken to a whole new level of complicated.

So interesting to learn more about your writing journey here. I didn’t know about your gran- but I love that she made you write down the stories you wanted instead of doing it for you. 😉 I also liked finding out about your path to publication. Wishing you all the best, Misha!

It was interesting to learn more about Misha’s background. Sounds like her grandmother gave her the spark that kicked off her writing, which is great! And having read these books, I can vouch that she’s a fantastic writer. Can’t wait for the next installment.

Wonderful post. I love hearing about other writers’ journeys. So cool you have the storytelling gene in your family! I’m still fighting to become more than a drop in the big ocean of the writing industry. Just have to keep pushing on. 🙂